[alain94040]

I gave a presentation on "how to find a co-founder" several times. Guess what: by slide 2, I give away the answer: the best co-founder is someone you already worked with. Not helpful? That's the truth.

Instead of trying to find a co-founder quickly, find a good contributor to your project. They may grow into becoming a co-founder over time, or they may "just" be your first employee. No one can really tell until time passes. So give it time, resist labels, and keep making progress.

From the perspective of the potential co-founder, the co-founder title is earned. "Be so good they can't ignore you" is exactly the mantra you want to become a co-founder. Make your contribution to the startup so significant that everyone will think of you as one of the founders.

Don't be that "paper co-founder" who negotiated the title but never put in the effort.

[joeyspn]

> ... the best co-founder is someone you already worked with. Not helpful? That's the truth.

Not really.

I started-up with a co-worker (of 2 years) and a guy whom I hadn't worked with before and guess who was the first to bring problems to the company and quit? The guy I previously worked with...

Truth is you don't really know a person until you're both in a seriously f*ckd up situation. That's what my experience has taught me.

[crdb]

I think what Alain is saying is you don't know how somebody is until you have worked a significant period of time with them, including stressful times where things went wrong (my own benchmark of whether someone is trustworthy is pretty much how they behave in such times - agreeing with your experience).

Going with a stranger might still be a good option if e.g. your previous company had bad quality staff, or if you were a business person and never had any contact with any technical people, but it's still akin to playing roulette.

[blazespin]

Hackathons are a good place to make introductions. They attract the right crowd.